Edward Nygma gets his Due
by Eliase Espynwislyn
Summary: Edward Nygma: hardly the most fearsome of Batman's Rogues' Gallery, with psychopaths like Two-face and Scarecrow making up their number. But what happens, I must wonder, when he is pushed too far?"


Edward Nygma Gets his Due

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff! C'mon people! Use your heads!

Edward Nygma was always a man who put great stock in his ability to think his way out of any situation. It wasn't  
hubris, though later on in his career as a supervillain he had plenty to spare. It was just one of those little,  
dependable parts of himself that he needed to make it through the day. Like, the janitor who prides himself  
on knowing the odds on every team in the league or the grocer who can reach the top shelf, Edward Nygma needed  
needed some quality that he could always count on when everything else seemed a waste. At this particular moment,  
however, Edward Nygma must certainly have wondered how smart he really was. After all, if he were really so smart,  
would he find himself so often beaten to a pulp and discarded in back allys?  
Gasping for breath beneath the sticky, bloodstained mask, Mr. Nygma struggled to maintain a crawl; getting  
to his feet would surely have been an impossibility at that point. After several minutes of struggle, he gave up,  
letting himself fall face-first into the piles of garbage that littered the ally. While turning over to avoid suffocation,  
his hand fell upon a scrap of cloth bearing the insignia of a question mark: what had once been his tie.  
"Gee, Mr! Are you the Riddler?" called an innocent. His vision blurred and hazy, Nygma guessed at the appearance  
of a young boy: short, sandy hair, probably with huge eyes that will one die drive the girls crazy.  
"The majority of him that remains in one piece," he manages, then takes a pause to breath. "What are you  
doing out so late anyway, my boy? And why the vernacular? I find it doubtful that anyone in all of history  
has ever actually said the word 'gee.'"  
"Sorry, sir..." He must have looked sheepish. "Boy, Batman really did a number on you tonight, didn't he?"  
"Oh, no. This isn't from Batman. I mean, he didn't help, but it isn't wholly his responsibility."  
"Then who did it?" asked the boy, with wonder.  
"A curious one. I like that. Well, clever boy, tell me this. What has two brains but one only head, two guns but  
only one hand to use them, and two loves, of comfort and despair, but only one punching bag to take them out on?"  
"Two-face?"  
"Two-Face." A drop of blood spilt from Edward Nygma's mouth as he sniggered, "And I'll leave it to you to  
figure out who the punching bag is."

"Earlier today (or perhaps it was weeks ago, I cannot, with any certainty say)  
I hacked into the bank account of the Diabolico Casino (which was an exceedingly simple puzzle,  
I must admit). I tranferred the entirety of their account to their new, digital big win machine, "The Pit of  
Brimstone", a seemingly unsolvable puzzle game. Having studied it extensively yesterday, I was certain that I had  
the absolute means of solving it. It was the perfect crime. I put up several posters with the words "THE BIG WIN"  
written in crushed sulpher. I thought perhaps that might tip the Bat or the police onto what I was planning,  
or at least that I was planning something."  
"But why?" asked the boy with wonder, "I mean, if your crime was so perfect, why even leave a clue? And why didn't you  
just transfer the money from their account into yours when you hacked in?"  
"My dear, dear boy," said Edward with a sigh, "You do not know me very well, do you? No, no don't answer, I  
already know the answer to that riddle. Why, with talk like that, you'd think the point was to steal money." The boy just  
stared, bemused. "Now, as I was saying. As I entered the Casino, I was gleefully unsurprised to find the bat present. What  
I was unpleasantly surprised to find that he was in the midst of an epic battle with TWo-face and his gang, who had apparently  
decided (I can only presume by random) to ransack the very casino where I had planned my own heist. While I was prepared to  
deal with the Bat, I was utterly unprepared for Two-face's unpredictable nature and, guess what? I lost the coin toss. Two-face's  
gang beat me into unconsciousness after Batman nearly did their job for them, and then they dumped me in a back ally."  
"And that's how you got here?"  
"No, no, no. That was far too painless," said the massive wreck of a E. Nygma, "You see, as I regained  
consciousness, who should I stumble upon (or rather, who should stumble, quite literally, over me) but a bookish, rail-thin  
man with a great beak of a nose. What stands in the night after all others have gone to bed? Who fights the enemy that rests  
on his head? Who stands without bones and waves with the wind? I'll let you puzzle it out for yourself. So, this bookish  
man says 'Oh my! What a wondrously helpless speciman!' and procedes to gas me into a horrific world of nightmare, full of  
puzzles that have been puzzled out by everyone but me. Some time later I awaken through sheer willpower back in the land  
of the lucid. And that, dear boy, is how I got here."  
"Wh-what are you going to do, Mr. Riddler?" asked the boy.  
"What boils the blood at a loved one's murder? What makes the cripple take a stand and the blind man see red? What will  
make them see that this time they've pushed the poor, defenseless, gimicky old Riddler too far?" Edward Nygma drew to his feet.  
As he tied the ratty old question marked cloth around his neck, becoming the Riddler once more, he said to the boy, "Vengence."

In the second bedroom of a two-story apartment in Gotham Central, a man with half the face of a gentleman and half  
the face of a monster searched frantically. "Look you idiots! Find it! Whatever you have to do, find it! Call  
off everything until I have it in my hands," screamed the raspy voice of desperation personified. One brave, 220 pound thug  
with a craftily forked beard presented him with a letter and a package. "You want me to open them boss?"  
"Uh... yeah... no wait no! Read it to me. Um... damnit! Damnit Damnit! No! No!"  
"I uh... I guess I'll just read it to you, boss," said the thug, hoping this decision wouldn't be his last, "With Love,  
to Cora C. Sewr, Your little lost item can be found within the package I left you. However, only the true king of Britain  
can open it. PS 948 s-drawkcab."  
"I don't have time for puzzles! Just pry the thing open! Do something already."  
"Sure boss. You'll have lady liberty back in no time."

Elsewhere, a looming, gaunt figure looks with barely contained rage at a letter adressed to "My Dearest Nat Mab" that  
simply states "I have taken what you seek below the place where the cubic roll, in the land where the minatour dwells." A  
voice like the wind blowing through leafless branches whispers, "There is only room for one master of fear in Gotham. Whoever  
has stolen my reserves of toxin shall pay dearly. They shall pay in their blood, sweat, and sanity."

In the Batcave, Batman brooded over a similar letter, knowing that figuing out its mystery could mean the fate of a  
young boy who went missing earlier that day.  
"We of Tac? How horribly daft, sir," said Alfred.  
"It's an anagram, and a simplistic one at that. Two-face."  
"But why would the Riddler send you a letter adressed to Two-face?"  
"That's the riddle. Hmm... I'm willing to bet that Two-face found a letter adressed to me. He must have done something to  
Two-face that would force him to play the riddle games as certainly as a hostage situation would force me to. So, if I follow  
this riddle to the loose board under the docks that the encrypted map points to..."  
"...You'll find what TWo-face is looking for. But why? Surely the both of you will have figured this out by that point."  
"Unless the Riddler doesn't expect us to get past that point. 'One person's pitfall is another's pleasure,'" it says.  
Alfred, I'll need to find Two-face and follow him. He'll lead me directly to the hostages."  
"Excellent, sir. I shall prepare the batmobile immediately."

As Batman searched for leads to Two-face's current whereabouts, Two-face's gang was busy at work with a crowbar attempting  
to pry open a twelve-sided rubix cube. After some time, they succeeded and were greeted with a horrible hissing noise and a  
long strip of paper emblazoned with a huge, green question mark. The gang members started to howl and scream. At first, Two-face wondered what they were so frightened of. A moment later, it became  
clear. In his left eye, Two-face saw the entire world of infinite possibilities. He saw himself without his coin for  
all eternity, utterly overwhelmed by the complex, ambiguous gray shades of the world. In his right eye, Harvey  
Dent saw the evil, angry Big Bad part of himself slowly taking full control. The scarred, ugliness within slowly  
spread to all of him, until there was nothing left. As usual, he was of two minds as to which he was more afraid of.

Meanwhile, the Scarecrow braved an ingeniously complex labrynth built below The Diobolico Casino. After many hours  
lost in its midst, the ragged rogue finally reached the center ofthe maze. There he found, much to his chagrin, not his stolen  
toxin reserves, but rather a young boy, bound and gagged, with sandy hair and big, blue eyes. Above the boy, was a screen  
which blinked to life, revealing the face of the Riddler. "Good work reaching the center of my maze. You are quite fortunate  
to possess such an impressive intellect. Unfortunately for you, you weren't the only one I sent a clue to about this boy's  
location." Almost as if on cue, the Scarecrow heard sirens and a loud voice calling, "Come out with your hands up, Scarecrow!  
We know you have the missing child!" Words cannot describe the anguish and loathing that burned beneath that burlap mask.

Batman eventually arrived at Two-face's lair and brought his him and his gang to Arkham to detox. Some time later he  
arrived at 849 Querodius Ave and put a boot through the face of a man in a purple mask and a green suit. As Edward Nygma lost  
consciousness his last thought was, "How delisciously worthwhile."


End file.
